-PTI Consumption of honey, cheese rises: study Patna: Prohibition is making people of Bihar spend on good clothes and food with sale of expensive sarees rising by 1,751%, while consumption of honey by 380% and that of cheese by 200% in the first six months of the ban, according to latest studies on the measure. The studies, conducted by think tank Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) and government-funded Development Management Institute (DMI), also...

-Hindustan Times Osmanabad, and Yavatmal in Vidarbha are two of the worst affected districts in the state, in the last seven years. In a recent study of 450 families that have witnessed farmer suicides in Osmanabad district of Marathwada, the Tata Institute of Social Studies (TISS) found that farmers from nuclear families are more vulnerable to commit suicide than those in joint families. Osmanabad, and Yavatmal in Vidarbha are two of the worst...

-The Telegraph Why farmers worry when Bhutan lifts stones Saralpara (India-Bhutan border): Since the 1990s, Anarshi Iswary and nearly 500 other farmers from five villages here have been joining hands every Wednesday during the monsoon to build, repair or rebuild a makeshift stone dam on the Saralbhanga, flowing down the hills of Bhutan about 4km away. The Sarpang district administration in Bhutan gives permission with a condition: no digging of the riverbed. The nine-foot-tall...

-The Indian Express We have, indeed, entered a regime of “permanent surpluses” in most crops — a reality our policymakers are unable to grasp, stuck as they are in the era of the Essential Commodities Act. If there is one thing that has changed in Indian agriculture in recent times, it is supply response — the ability of farmers to increase production when prices go up. Traditionally, the supply curve in most...

-GoIMonitor.com The villagers getting management rights under the Forest Rights Act can inspire others “First came the forest, followed by the people, and then the government. Does this chronology allow the newest entrant in the scheme to determine the relationship between the two older entities? In other words, does the new regime of community forest resource bequeath rights or is it merely a recognition of unalienable rights already vested in the communities living...